


Skin Hunger

by Sholio



Category: Iron Fist (TV)
Genre: Accidentally Group Married, Cuddle Pollen, Gen, Other, Sex Pollen, Skin Hunger, Touch-Starved, platonic marriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-07-28
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,467
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25569424
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sholio/pseuds/Sholio
Summary: Ward gets hit with sex pollen (of a sort) in an abandoned temple.
Relationships: Ward Meachum & Danny Rand & Colleen Wing
Comments: 10
Kudos: 60
Collections: Just Married Exchange 2020





	Skin Hunger

**Author's Note:**

  * For [glorious_spoon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/glorious_spoon/gifts).



"Ooh, caves with weird carvings," Ward said, shining his flashlight around. "Never seen that before." 

He ignored the exasperated glance from Colleen. Eight hours of hiking through mosquito-infested jungles hadn't done wonders for the state of uneasy getting-along-for-Danny's-sake truce in which they existed most of the time, but at least she hadn't _said_ anything, so he decided to magnanimously take the high road and not needle her in return. For now.

Danny, who was starting to look fed up with both of them, sighed and pushed some vines out of the way to press deeper into the cave. Ward had uneasy thoughts of snakes. 

"Can you read these inscriptions?" Colleen asked Danny, following him rather than continuing to hang around Ward's end of the cave.

"Yeah, it's an older version of one of the scripts I learned in K'un-Lun." Danny frowned, looking up at the carvings in the flashlight beam. "It's gonna be slow going, though. I think this is some kind of story about a ... turtle and a ... tall pole?"

Ward was noticing something else as he played his flashlight across the carvings. "Hey, is it just me or are a lot of these carvings a little bit ... X-rated?"

"For god's sake, Ward," Colleen sighed, "not everything is ... uh, wow."

"See? Not just me, right?"

"In many cultures sex is a valued part of religious and cultural celebrations," Danny said absently. He was looking closely at the inscriptions, but was now starting to get distracted by the pictures. "Um, okay, I don't think that thing is supposed to be a pole."

"Thank you for the public service announcement." Ward continued to run his flashlight over the carvings. "Their celebrations were very innovative, I see."

"Like Danny said, Ward," Colleen said. "Lots of cultures aren't as repressed as America is about sex."

Nice sentiment, sure, but she was blushing slightly. "Yeah," Ward said, who was, okay, unable to resist needling her just a little. "I think you have to pay extra for that one right there on pay-per-view."

"If that's the only way you can get it," Colleen said, wandering deeper into the cave.

"If you're implying what I think you're implying, that's far, _far_ too much information about your sex life with Danny."

Colleen made a face. "Ward, please."

The carvings continued around the room, displaying Kama Sutra levels of innovation, interrupted only by a door in the middle. It was covered all over in carved writing and blessedly free of copulating figures. There was no obvious way to open it.

"Hey guys," Ward said. "Door."

"If there is a portal to K'un-Lun here, it'll be behind that," Danny said, joining him. His face was nakedly eager. Ward looked away; it was a look he was all too familiar with from the inside, and sometimes he wondered what the hell he was doing, indulging Danny in pursuit of a craving as powerful and destructive as any that Ward himself had struggled with.

Looking away from Danny, he accidentally caught Colleen's eye instead, just as she looked away from Danny but not before the concerned look faded from her face. Her gaze latched onto Ward's for an instant and then she scowled and wrenched it away, as if unwilling to let him see even that moment of vulnerability.

"It's too bad you can't just fist through it," Danny said. "How's the arm?"

Colleen shook her head. Her right arm was in a sling against her chest, courtesy of a fight with temple guards down the river in the valley a few days ago. "Nowhere near ready for action yet."

"So we do this the old-fashioned Indiana Jones way," Ward said, shining his light above the door. "Hidden latch, anyone?"

"The door itself might explain how to get in," Danny said. He leaned close, tilting his head to the side as he tried to read the script.

"Given our luck, it's probably ancient K'un-Lunian for 'abandon hope all ye who enter here,'" Ward muttered. He ran his flashlight down the crack at the side of the door.

"The language actually isn't —"

"Danny, I'm tired, I don't remember what it feels like to _not_ be sweaty, and I think I have blisters on my blisters. Please do not correct me on this."

Colleen had wandered off to the side, examining the carvings and inscriptions. Ward felt as if doing the same in the other direction would look like he was copying her, so stubbornness kicked in and he examined the door instead. He went down to one knee, lightly running his fingertips over the carvings.

"It's strange," Danny murmured. 

Ward glanced up. In the harsh light from their flashlights, Danny looked like a charcoal drawing, a chiaroscuro cowboy in his long coat. "What's strange?" Ward asked.

"This inscription. I think it's talking about ... bindings, to open the door? I'm not sure, maybe I'm reading it wrong."

"I still think there's some kind of secret latch." Ward let his fingertips float along the rock. "It seems like the sort of place that'd have something like that."

"This isn't an Indiana Jones movie, Ward," Danny muttered.

And just then, one patch of rock went _click!_ under Ward's hand.

"Oh really?" Ward said, grinning up at him. He pushed, and it slid back with a grinding sound; at the same time, a crack appeared down the center of the doors — or _doors_ , rather; apparently it was a double door, and it was now open. "You sure about — _fuck!"_

Something hot and fiercely painful stung his palm. He jerked his hand back; damn it, he'd forgotten about snakes — but there was no snake, nothing but a depression in the rock where his hand had been, and the gleam of a needle with a smear of his blood around it. 

"Ward!" Danny said, dropping next to him in a swirl of his long leather coat. "Ward, say something — Colleen, where are you?"

"I'm fine," Ward said on autopilot, looking down at the pinprick of blood on his palm. It burned. That was probably a bad sign. Nobody put nice, normal, un-poisoned needles in a hidden sex temple.

"Let's see if we can press some of the blood out." Danny took Ward's hand in his, grasping it firmly. Ward went along with it numbly until Danny's callused thumbs pressed on either side of the pinprick. There was a fierce, sharp stab of pain, and Ward yelped and tried to wrench his hand out of Danny's grasp. It didn't work; Danny was shockingly strong when he wanted to be.

Colleen appeared above Danny's shoulder, taking in the scene at a glance. "Should I get our packs?"

"Yes, please," Danny said. All his focus was on Ward's hand, squeezing like Ward's hand was a ripe grapefruit and Danny was trying to press all the juice out — and it hurt like absolute hell, a bolt of bright pain ripping through Ward's hand and up his arm.

"Ow. Fuck. What are you doing?"

"There's a snakebite kit in the packs," Danny said without looking up. Blood ran slick over the side of Ward's palm. "I think it's reasonable to treat this like one."

"It's already circulating in my bloodstream, you idiot. That's how blood works."

And he felt it, though maybe it was only his imagination as yet. He was lightheaded and dizzy, and it seemed easier to lean back against Danny's chest than to struggle.

"How do you feel?" Danny asked anxiously.

"Like you're breaking my hand in half," Ward muttered, and Danny's punishing grasp eased up a bit.

But he really _was_ feeling it now. This was more than just panic; it was real. Heat and chills raced down his limbs, and he was finding it hard to take a deep breath. His heart was racing.

Colleen arrived at a run. She flung down the packs she was carrying, and dropped to a crouch beside Danny. "What do we need? Snakebite kit? Which pack is that in?"

"Mine," Danny said. He was holding Ward up, supporting him with an arm around his chest. It was easy to forget how strong Danny was, Ward thought dazedly; Danny didn't look that big, but he had a tense wiry strength, not a bulked-up gym-rat kind of thing. 

"Ward," Danny said, patting the side of his face. Ward turned his head automatically; Danny's hand felt cool and nice against his overheated skin. "Hey, Ward. Stay with me. How do you feel?"

"Hot," Ward said. It had felt cool in the cave when they first stepped inside, almost cold after the humid warmth outside, but now he could feel sweat prickling his spine under his shirt and breaking out across his forehead.

"Here," Colleen said, pushing the snakebite kit at them. "Did you see what bit him?"

"Wasn't a bite," Ward said, managing to get himself together a little. He was shivering now, but he still felt too hot. He didn't actually feel _bad_ , just ... weird. "It was a trap. Seriously, guys, the door's _open_ — I mean, it _worked_ , technically—"

No one was paying much attention to him. "Yeah, there was something in the door. Some kind of poison needle," Danny said, opening the snakebite kit one-handed. "I don't know if there's anything in here that'll help. But I don't know what else to do."

His voice cracked, desperate, and Ward tilted his head back just in time to see both of them look at Colleen's arm in its sling.

"I can't," Colleen said, sounding almost helpless.

"I know!" Danny said quickly. "I'm not — there's nothing you could do, anyway."

"It's not up to me. I'm sealed in that arm. Chi-blocked." Her voice was tense and angry, a sharp whip-crack.

"I _know,"_ Danny said, and there was a helpless desperation in his tone that hurt something deep in Ward's chest.

"I could go for help," Colleen suggested. She still sounded angry, as if they had accused her of something she hadn't done.

"I don't think there's any point." Danny pressed a little suction cup to Ward's palm. Bright-hot pain flared through his hand, straight down to the bones. Ward cursed and tried to pull away, but Danny held onto him with a ruthless grip on his wrist. "It's hours and hours down to the village," he went on to Colleen, over the top of Ward's head. "As fast as this is taking effect, this is all going to be over by the time you get there."

Colleen closed her hand over Danny's arm. "Then give him to me," she said. "There might be an answer written on that door, or in that room, and you're the only one who can read it."

Danny stilled for an instant, then gave a swift nod, and Ward found himself shoved, shivering and sweating, into Colleen's grasp. Danny squeezed his shoulder with a quick, reassuring grip, and then straightened up. He slipped out of his coat, that stupid ridiculous cowboy coat, and laid it over Ward. It smelled of gun-oil and leather and Danny.

"I don't know if we need that; he's burning up," Colleen said. "What is it? Fever?"

Danny shook his head. "I don't know," he said, and cursed softly in Mandarin. He reached for one of the flashlights and leaned close to the door.

"Ward," Colleen said, and the brisk, no-nonsense tone brought him back from wherever he'd drifted off to in his head. "Show me your hand."

When she used that tone, it was impossible not to respond; something about it went straight down to his core. Ward wordless spread out his fingers and exposed his palm for her. 

His head was resting against her shoulder. He'd never been this close to Colleen; even at their campsites and hostels, since she'd joined them in Asia, they kept their distance — Danny and Colleen had their own tent, or their own bunk. Now he had his head pressed up against the junction between her collarbone and the ball of her shoulder, so that he could feel it flex when she moved. Her ponytail brushed the side of his face when she turned her head.

"I don't think there's any way to get more of the poison out," she said, and pressed a ball of cotton to his palm. "That particular snakebite remedy's been discredited anyway. It's circulated by your body too quickly."

"Tried to tell Danny that," Ward said through chattering teeth. "Didn't believe me." He found himself fascinated by Colleen's small, strong hand, so different from Danny's, and yet just as sure and capable, with similar-yet-different calluses ridged along the edges of her fingertips.

"Yeah, sounds like him. We should keep the injury below your heart so it doesn't spread as fast," she said, lowering their joined hands to rest on his thigh, and Ward allowed her to drag his arm along like a rag doll's. "Danny? What have you found?"

"Nothing that makes sense." Danny was leaning toward the stone door, his entire body inclined forward as if that could make him read faster. He always threw every part of himself into everything he did. It was one of the things Ward admired most about him and also, at times, the most frustrating thing. "There's a lot about ... bindings, and commitment ... and it keeps using a word that I thought meant _marriage,_ but —"

"But what does it _say,_ Danny." Colleen stretched, her body flexing against Ward's, and pulled one of the packs toward them. She let go of his hand and leaned over to rummage through it, coming up with their first-aid kit.

"It's just talking about how only a ... wedded couple, I think, can get in." He shook his head, and Ward, looking up with his head resting on Colleen's shoulder, found himself hypnotized by the ripple of Danny's pale curls in the flashlight's reflected glow. " _A bonded pair, joined in unity ... a burden shared_ — I think maybe weddings were performed here?"

"Figure it out fast, Danny!" Colleen said. Her voice vibrated against Ward, sending a cool chill down his spine. She placed the end of a pressure bandage against his wrist and began firmly wrapping his hand.

Ward closed his eyes and leaned into her. He _liked_ Colleen, even if she didn't like him very much. She was strong and capable, and she loved Danny, which was probably why she was never going to like him much.

But her hands weren't rough as she manipulated his injured arm. She wasn't gentle, exactly, but her firm, practical touch was incredibly relaxing. He could lean into it, enjoy it.

"I ... think this door was a test," Danny said, sounding frustrated. "Or something like that? Only a true bond between a couple would let them pass through —"

"Total bullshit obviously," Ward said without opening his eyes. His voice came out raspy, but the waves of shivering were starting to ease. Maybe that meant it was getting better.

"There's more here ... a lot of talk about sharing burdens, and joining in — _oh."_

Danny's voice changed abruptly, and Ward opened his eyes. For an instant he thought his vision was going, the color bleeding out of the world, but then he remembered the dark and the flashlights. Danny was down on one knee, examining the inscriptions around the dark, recessed square in the rock that had stabbed Ward.

"Careful," Ward rasped out, trying to lurch forward. Colleen caught him and held him still.

"What?" she asked, over the top of Ward's head. "And yes, _do_ be careful; I don't need two of you in the same condition." Ward could almost taste the worry in her voice, clear and sharp, like expensive vodka.

"It sounds like the idea was that the couple would ... _taste the bitter drink together,_ is what it says, but the idea is that one would, uh ... poison themselves? And the other would share it." Danny looked over his shoulder, his eyes wide and pale, colorless in the flashlight's cool light. "It's fatal for one person alone, but not for two."

 _"What,"_ Colleen said flatly. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

"I agree with Colleen," Ward said, closing his eyes. He was hot and cold at once, heat alternating with ice water under his skin. 

"What do we do?" Colleen asked, her voice steady, and Ward opened his eyes again.

Danny was leaning forward in _far_ too close proximity to that fucking poisoned needle; Ward started to reach for him, but Colleen imprisoned his arm in a quick grappling hold.

"Uh, it sort of looks like in order to save him, we have to consummate the marriage," Danny said in a faintly strangled voice.

Now Ward's eyes opened all the way. "So I'm going to die, then."

"Ward," Danny said, "shut up."

And he did. Danny's voice had a startling note of command in it. He had never really experienced that from Danny before, but it was ... hard to resist, honestly.

Then of course Danny ruined it by being Danny, bending over him anxiously, smacking lightly at his face. "Ward ... Ward, wake up. Hey."

"Get off," Ward muttered.

"So how does this work?" Colleen asked, and Ward tilted his chin up to see her looking at Danny, with her jaw set. "What _happens?_ I mean, you can't share poison during — _that,_ that's not how anything works."

"I don't know!" Danny said helplessly. He caught Ward's chin in his fingertips. "Ward, hey. Stay with us."

"And obviously," Colleen said, "you can't have sex with someone who is ... I mean .... even if we were going to, he's like ... _that."_

"I'm fine," Ward said as clearly as possible under the circumstances.

"Shut up, Ward," they said together. It was completely unfair; it shuddered through his core, and he sucked in a breath and turned his head to the side, turning his face into Colleen's neck.

She had a nice smell, soap and a light floral shampoo and the smell of her skin.

"Danny," Colleen said, holding very still. "Ward is nuzzling me."

"I noticed. Hey, Ward." Danny pulled him away from Colleen, and he went willingly, because it was Danny, and Ward would follow him anywhere. 

He _hurt_ , when they weren't touching him. But having someone touching him took away the pain, the pressure, the clawing need under the skin. It just wasn't enough. He groaned and pressed his face against Danny, and just breathed him in.

"Uh, yeah. Hi." Danny put a hand on his back. "Colleen, I'm really not sure what to do here."

"Does it have to be sex? I mean, really have to? Could we just, like ... cuddle him a lot?"

"Not sure," Danny said. He patted Ward's back hesitantly.

Colleen made a small sighing noise. Then she stood up. Ward turned his head, drawn by the motion.

"Give him here," she said sharply. "Get out the sleeping bags."

"Colleen —" Danny began.

"Just give him here." Her voice was tight and resigned. "Danny, look. If that inscription's right, he'll die if we don't do this, and that'd kill something in _you,_ but as for the rest of it, you two are — you two, and I don't like him enough for it to mess up anything with us."

"That's a great reason to marry someone," Ward said thickly.

"Colleen," Danny said, his voice infinitely gentle. One of his hands was cupped around the back of Ward's neck, his fingers cool on Ward's sweaty skin. "You can't do this just because you ... feel like you have to. I mean, I don't mind. Ward and I, we've done all kinds of crazy things. This is just another one."

There were rustles, the sound of a zipper. "I know," Colleen said. More rustling, a sleeping bag flung on a hard stone floor. "But you're not here alone. Just ... let me take this bullet for you, instead. I'll deal with the fallout. You can ... wait outside, or something."

"I'm not leaving you," Danny said, and his voice was low and fierce, and it set something vibrating in Ward. "Either of you."

"So do I get ..." Ward got out, and he struggled just enough that Danny eased off his grip, and Ward sat up. His head swam; he steadied himself on Danny's shoulder. "Do I get a say in this?"

"Course you do," Danny said, steadying him with a hand planted on his back, solid and firm. "What do you want, Ward?"

What he wanted was a desperate, wild need for someone else's skin on his. Anyone, it didn't matter. But this was the sort of thing he was familiar with. He knew how to deal with unwanted cravings. He'd had plenty of practice.

"What's going to happen," he said, pushing Danny back with a hand that shook only slightly, "is we're going to walk in there and find out what's behind that door we just opened."

"Ward," Danny began, with a note of familiar exasperation.

"I'm fine. I think it's getting a little better." It was taking every bit of self-control he possessed, but he was able to keep himself upright, to _not_ press against Danny like every part of him wanted to. "I think it was worse at the beginning. I can stand. Just give me a hand up."

Danny huffed out a breath, simultaneously frustrated and worried, but he helped Ward to his feet, the leather coat sloughing off in a heap on the stone floor. Ward staggered; Danny moved to support him, but he caught himself on the wall.

Colleen looked up from laying out the sleeping bags; it looked like she was unzipping them and making some kind of extra-wide bed. "You really shouldn't be walking around."

"You got me all wrapped up," Ward pointed out, waving his bandaged hand at her. He felt very lightheaded, but tenuously stable, like his head was a balloon floating somewhere above his body. "Seriously, what _is_ it with you two? The ancient rock carvings say the cure for poison is sex, so you're like, 'welp, pants off, everyone'? _Seriously?"_

Colleen sat back on her heels on the sleeping bags, a flicker of annoyance crossing her face. "He does sound more like himself now," she said.

"You're feeling better?" Danny said dubiously. 

"A lot better," Ward lied. He could tell he was sweating, but the light wasn't good in here; maybe they wouldn't be able to notice. There was gray daylight coming through the crack in the two halves of the door. "C'mon, door right there, could be K'un-Lun on the other side, don't you want to see?"

It was a low blow, but it got Danny moving. With one hand still resting in the middle of Ward's back, he carefully pushed the door open. Colleen scrambled to her feet to see.

It wasn't K'un-Lun on the other side. It wasn't much, actually. There was a large round stone chamber, with more of those pornographic statues along the sides. Daylight was coming through an aperture in the ceiling. Below it, lit with a shaft of light, there was a pool. 

Ward wobbled cautiously over to the edge and looked down at it. The water looked surprisingly clear and clean for having been sealed up for who knew how long. It was trickling into the pool through channels carved in the rock, and presumably must be trickling out the same way, since it wasn't overflowing. 

While he was contemplating the state of ancient rock-temple plumbing, Danny and Colleen were looking swiftly around the room. "Nothing," Danny said. " _Damn_ it."

"If this was a place for marriages, I guess we must be standing in the consummation chamber," Colleen said. She cast a somewhat uncomfortable glance at the statues.

"There's no bed," Danny said.

They both looked at the pool.

"Okay, well, that would explain some of the ... positions," Colleen said with another look at the statues. "So there's a sex pool. This is a _fantastic_ day."

"Where's — Ward!" Danny caught him with a fistful of Ward's sweat-soaked shirt. "Don't fall in. Damn it, you're still really hot."

"Can we treat it like a fever?" Colleen asked. "Get him down in the, er ... the sex pool, maybe?"

Ward, who had been simply drifting, listening idly to their conversation, now came abruptly back to himself and took a step backwards. "No," he said. "This sounds completely unsanitary."

"It's been abandoned for hundreds of years, Ward, chill out."

Ward realized they were actually doing it — Danny was wading in, Colleen had hold of him now and was handing him along after Danny. "Hey — wait — whoa, I'm still wearing all my clothes. Let me at least take my shoes off."

He sat on the edge of the pool and carefully, with Colleen's help, removed his hiking boots. Danny was waist deep in the water now; it looked like there were steps going down in.

"You're going to regret that when you have to walk down this mountain with wet feet," Ward told him, trying not to focus on how _good_ it felt, leaning into the feeling of Colleen's sure, firm hands undoing the laces on his boots (his hands slipped clumsily; that level of fine motor control was currently beyond him) and pulling them off.

"He's right, Danny," Colleen said with a small sigh. "Take your boots off and pass them up."

She took them, dumped the water out, and set them neatly on the edge of the pool, then took off her own. 

"Come on in, Ward," Danny said, reaching up for him.

"This is the worst idea," Ward complained, but he let Danny take his weight, and then his clumsy attempt to step into the pool turned into a half-controlled fall and a splash that soaked both of them.

"Jesus!" The water was colder than he'd thought, a sharp shock on his overheated skin. His head cleared somewhat.

"Better?" Danny asked.

"Definitely wetter."

"It's deeper over here. Come on." Ward resisted, and Danny tugged on him. "Come on, we have clean dry clothes in the packs. We can get dressed after. Just get in the water. I think it's helping; your color looks better."

What was helping, although he really didn't want to admit it, was the feeling of Danny manhandling him into the deeper part of the pool. It wasn't sexual, not exactly, but it was a kind of intense _craving_ , a desperate skin hunger that was only relieved by the glide of Danny's hands across his shoulders, the feeling of Danny towing him through the water.

He looked back to see Colleen, stripped down to just her pants and T-shirt, slide into the water with hardly a ripple. Of course she was that graceful, and a spasm of some kind of deep, visceral need rippled through him. He wrenched his gaze away from her.

"Ward? Hey ... keep moving. There you go." 

The water was up to their chests now, and they were both nearly floating. "Let go," Danny urged. "I've got you."

He didn't really have a choice, put that way. He felt Danny's hands resting firm and solid on his shoulders, and simply let his bare, sore feet float up off the pool bottom. There was an instant's panic as he felt himself go over backward, and he started to struggle. Historically, trust falls tended not to work out that well for him.

"I got you," Danny murmured in his ear, and he shuddered and let it all go. If he sank, Danny would catch him. There was a rush of panic as he relaxed into the water, and then he was floating, his head against Danny's shoulder. 

"Better?" Danny said, and Ward nodded a little. Strangely enough the disorientation of being in the water helped him deal with the dizziness and general loss of equilibrium from the drug. All he had to do was float, with Danny as a fulcrum point, the one stable thing in an uncertain, shifting world.

He was aware of Colleen half-wading, half-swimming up to them, and drifting alongside. One of her hands rested on Danny's arm, and occasionally she brushed against Ward's side without really meaning to, he thought, as the three of them floated in the water.

"So," Colleen said, and Ward's eyes opened; they'd started to drift shut. "How long are you planning on staying in here, exactly?"

"I think it's helping," Danny said. "His temperature's almost normal, I think."

"Yeah, and _we're_ both getting chilled. Is there a suggestion box? Because an unheated sex pool is really inconsiderate, I'm just saying."

Her hand brushed Ward's arm, and her touch stirred a light ripple of some prickling sensation all over his body, there and gone. 

"I'll talk to the management," Danny said, and Ward felt, more than heard, his soft laugh. "Hey, Ward. Feel like getting out before we all get pneumonia?"

It was easier to go along with them than to struggle. Danny floated him to the shallow end of the pool, and put an arm around him and swung him upright. There was a moment's utter disorientation and he grabbed onto Danny as his feet settled onto the bottom of the pool.

"Whoa, hey. I gotcha." Danny had an arm around him, holding him up. Ward leaned into him, helplessly pliable. "Hey. Are you with me? Colleen, could you go get the —"

"Sleeping bags and towels," Colleen said promptly, and hoisted herself out of the pool, slopping water over the floor.

Danny helped Ward onto the edge of the pool, then climb out after him. Ward sagged onto Danny's shoulder. He felt too heavy on land; he'd liked the weightnessness of the pool, the way it seemed to embrace him all over. He wanted that again, the feeling of being _touched_ , and he leaned against Danny and turned his face into the crook of Danny's shoulder. 

"Uh, wow. Okay, Ward," Danny said, awkwardly petting his hair. Ward leaned into the touch. "So apparently you're still incredibly drugged."

Colleen padded back in, dragging the sleeping bags and the packs. "What _exactly_ did the inscriptions say, Danny? Did it actually _say_ sex, or was it vaguer than that?"

"It just talked about consummation," Danny said, twisting around with an arm around Ward. "I mean, there are different ways of consummating relationships, right? Ward, do you actually _want_ sex right now?"

"Nhhgghh," Ward said into his shoulder.

"Look, let's just get him dry and into the sleeping bags," Colleen suggested. "He doesn't actually seem to be _sick_ , I mean, not right now. His breathing's fine. How's the heart rate?"

"It's settled down a lot," Danny reported, pressing his fingers to Ward's wrist. "He seems a lot calmer when someone's touching him, actually it's working on him like a drug. Maybe that's all it is, maybe you just need skin contact."

"Oh, thank _God,"_ Colleen said. "I mean, yes, let's try that."

Ward put up a brief, token struggle when Danny started stripping off his wet shirt, and then just went with it. Every time they broke contact with him, he could feel the shivering and agitated, miserable feeling start to come back.

"Yeah, I think it's just being touched," Danny said. "Ward, c'mon. Into the sleeping bags."

Danny crawled in after him, and then Colleen. Nobody was actually naked — Colleen was mostly dressed, Danny in a T-shirt and boxers, and he'd gotten Ward into a dry T-shirt and underwear as well. While Ward lay in Colleen's lap with the sleeping bag wrapped around them, Danny sat up and disinfected his hand and wrapped it in a clean, dry bandage.

"Don't leave," Ward whispered. Right now, that felt like the most important thing.

"We won't," Danny said firmly. He tucked in the ends of the bandage and slid down beside Ward in the sleeping bags. "I mean, we all just hiked up a mountain. We could use some rest, right?"

Colleen gave a little laugh and unloaded Ward onto Danny, but rather than leaving, she wormed deeper into the sleeping bag beside him. Ward felt as if he ought to be resisting this, but he simply didn't have it in him. He melted against the warm bodies on either side of him. His hand still ached, but he was aware of the feeling of tension bleeding out of him, leaving him possibly more relaxed than he'd ever been in his life.

* * *

Ward woke sticky, dry-mouthed, and uncomfortable, with a dawning feeling of _Oh shit._

At one point in his life, this had been a familiar feeling on waking up, but it hadn't happened nearly so much since he quit drinking.

It was all familiar, the slight headache and vaguely hungover feeling and most of all the desperate humiliation and regret. The fact that there were two warm, sleeping bodies on either side didn't help in the slightest.

He wished that he didn't remember what had happened, but his mind had never been kind to him in that way. He didn't really get blackouts, as such — not most of the time, no matter how trashed he got. No, he could remember every humiliating moment in living color. Every bit of hunger and need, every raw instant of it.

He slowly and quietly sat up. Danny had an arm flung over him that Ward had to very carefully disentangle. Colleen was more reserved, but she was still spooned up against him, with her fingers laced through Danny's; Ward had to untangle those too.

Very carefully, he slipped out of the sleeping bag nest into the chill of the pool chamber.

The light that came down through the ceiling hole was the clear bright light of morning sun. Ward fumbled with the packs, his bandaged fingers clumsy. The first one he got was Colleen's, and he dropped it as if burned. He found his own pack then, open, with some of the contents pulled out — that's right, they'd put him in dry clothes yesterday, dressing him like a doll. Every new memory brought fresh humiliation. He pulled out pants and socks, struggled to dress quietly with still-clumsy hands.

There was some rustling from the sleeping bags, and Danny's tousled head emerged. "Ward?" he asked thickly, and yawned. Ward, at the edge of the pool, was trying to get his boots on. "Where are you going?"

"Don't get up," Ward said hastily. "Just ... sleep, I'm just going ... out."

Right now all he could think of was getting away. He pushed his way blindly through the open doors, realized he'd forgotten a flashlight, but there was just enough light to see, between the light from the pool chamber and what came in through the temple's vine-draped doors. He groped his way out, and stumbled into the morning sun.

He wasn't quite sure where he planned to go. He had some vague idea of walking back down the mountain. It wouldn't be that bad, would it? He was no expert on navigation, and the last couple of miles had been basically bushwacking, but they had come most of the way on a well-marked hiking trail. All he had to do to hit it again was go _down._ He thought.

"Ward?" Danny emerged into the sunshine behind him, hopping on one leg as he tried to put pants on. He was still barefoot. "Ward — wait — _ow_ — where are you going?"

"Away! Go back to sleep!"

"Wait, just — _stop_ for a minute, would you? Hey!"

He could probably have outdistanced Danny, with Danny being barefoot and all, but he also thought there was a pretty good chance he'd get lost on the mountainside and they would both have to come rescue him, and that was just embarrassing. So he stopped at a big sun-warmed boulder and sat on it. After a minute, Danny limped and stumbled up to him and plunked down on the boulder beside him.

"Ouch," Danny said. He hooked one bare foot over his knee and rubbed the sole with his thumb. "You know, I think I've lost all the calluses I used to have."

"Shoes, the opiate of the masses."

Danny laughed a little, though Ward wondered if he even had the slightest idea what the quote was riffing on. "Ward, look," he said, sobering. "I know you're a little freaked out, but listen ... I don't know if you remember what happened, but we didn't have sex, okay? If that's what you're worried about."

Ward stared at him for a moment. "I know that," he said.

"Okay. Good. I think Colleen is especially relieved." Danny grinned, but Ward didn't smile back, and Danny's expressive face shifted to a worried frown. "Well, what's wrong, then? Are you still feeling bad? Let me see your hand."

"I don't — I'm not —" It was impossible to argue with Danny when he was like this. Ward heaved a deep, exasperated sigh and held out his bandaged hand. 

Danny took it carefully, and an awkward ghost of yesterday's touch-hunger shivered through him. He thought Danny might have noticed him tensing up, but Danny didn't say anything, and Ward held himself in check while Danny unwrapped it.

"Doesn't look too bad." The wound on Ward's palm was visibly inflamed, but Ward thought most of the damage was probably from Danny and Colleen's attempts to remove the poison. "How does it feel?"

"Sore." Ward cautiously flexed his hand.

"We disinfected it yesterday, but it's probably time for another round. Let me wrap this back up for you so it stays as clean as possible 'til we get back to the campsite."

"Yeah, whatever," Ward muttered. He looked away, but that just made him more aware of Danny's hands, firm and warm and sure, binding his hand while gripping it with exquisite care.

"Want to talk about it?" Danny said.

"Not really," Ward said, staring off into the scrubby woods on the mountainside.

Danny sighed and gave his hand a little pat. "There. When we get back, we'll disinfect it properly." He sniffed the air. "Smells like woodsmoke. I guess Colleen's got a fire going."

God. Colleen. He didn't know how he could look her in the eye.

Without warning, Danny leaned against him, his shoulder bumping Ward's. "Hey, listen, you didn't say or do anything embarrassing yesterday, you know? I've made a much bigger fool out of myself."

In spite of his general misery, Ward felt the corner of his mouth twitching up. "Yeah, that's true."

"Hey, you didn't have to agree quite so fast."

"When you're right, you're right, though."

Danny grinned at him. "So I'm right about the other thing too," he said, and Ward rolled his eyes. "Also, we're apparently married now, so I feel the least you can do is make me breakfast," and now Danny's eyes were laughing at him.

"Oh, so you're going to be one of _those_ kinds of husbands. Figures." But his urge to run off into the jungle had, if not vanished entirely, then at least faded to manageable levels. Ward slid off the boulder, and gave Danny a hand down.

Colleen was indeed making a fire in the clearing in front of the vine-draped entrance to the temple. "Hey, Colleen," Danny called as they came out of the woods. "Ward going to make breakfast for us."

"Is he?" Colleen said. She was sitting beside the fire, barefoot in loose pants and a loose shirt, feeding small twigs to the flames. 

"Husbandly duties," Danny said, and flashed a grin at Ward before vanishing into the temple to get the packs.

"We're not married!" Ward yelled after him. He huffed out a sort-of laugh, sort-of sigh, and looked at Colleen, who was not quite looking at him but continued to feed small pieces of wood to the fire. "Can I, uh ... help?"

"I hear you're making breakfast."

"Uh, yeah." He sat across the fire from her. Not really sure what to do, he picked up a twig from the pile of firewood and fed to the small but growing flames. He wanted to apologize, but how much sense did that really make? Oh, hell with it. "Colleen, I'm sorry about yesterday."

She looked up in surprise. After a minute, she said, "I think that's the first time you've ever apologized to me for anything."

"Really?" He rewound their interactions in his head. Huh. Maybe it was. "I don't apologize much." Though he had been trying to learn, back in New York. Bethany had been a good teacher for that, until he finally pushed her away too many times.

"I noticed," Colleen said. She shoved a larger stick into the flames. "It just figures that the one time you do apologize to me, it's for something that wasn't your fault."

"Look, I have plenty of practice at doing stupid things under the influence of drugs," Ward said, stung. "As you probably know. So, for once in my goddamn life I got a chance to apologize to someone for being an asshole to them while I was high. You're welcome."

But she was looking at him over the flames with a peculiar expression. "Ward ... do you actually _remember_ anything that happened yesterday?"

"In absolute technicolor," he muttered, shoving a handful of what turned out to be moss and dead leaves into the fire. It guttered; the gold and orange flames turned to smoke for a minute.

"Ward! Don't put it out."

"Yeah, so I'm terrible at this." He looked at the fire, not at her, watching Colleen build it back up again. "Listen, I know yesterday was awkward and it was my fault, and ... I don't want to mess with you and Danny, or — any of this, so can we just forget that —"

"Ward?"

"Yeah?"

"Please stop apologizing," Colleen said. "It's actually worse than having you _not_ apologize, which I have now realized. So just. Stop."

Ward jammed a stick into the fire with enough force to scatter some of the coals and make it gutter again, getting him a dirty look from Colleen. What in the hell was Danny doing with those packs, alphabetizing the contents? Though he supposed Danny was probably having to pack up the sleeping bags and wet clothes and whatnot. Or maybe, Danny being Danny, he'd been sidetracked by reading inscriptions, or had been attacked by random ninjas or something.

"Look, no — like this," Colleen said quietly. She took a twig and laid it carefully in the small and growing flames. "Dry wood. Be gentle. Leave room for it to breathe. Coax it, don't force it."

"Ah, my best quality," Ward murmured. He picked out a dry curl of moss and was rewarded with a tiny tongue of flame.

"You know, when I was with Bakuto ..." Colleen said, in a contemplative tone that might be for herself alone. She reached for a small handful of twigs. "Not showing weakness was a whole entire ... thing. I didn't think there was anything strange about it. I just saw it as ... love. He wanted me to be strong." She grimaced, and carefully shredded a piece of moss into the fire. "But it's the kind of thing that can fuck you up for a lifetime. Because there are times when you _can't_ be the strong one, and when you don't really have a model for how to deal with that — it's hard." She put a small stick carefully crosswise in the fire, and it flared up, growing stronger, catching on the twig Ward had just laid there.

There was a silence that lingered, broken only by the snapping of the flames — they'd fallen into a rhythm now, her sticks building on his, back and forth — and then Ward said, "So Danny says that since I'm married to you guys, I'm doing all the cooking now —"

"I didn't say that," Danny declared, emerging from the entrance to the tomb lugging all three packs, with such perfect timing that Ward would've thought he had been waiting inside and had planned it, except that sort of deliberation wasn't really Danny's style; why plan things when you could crash into the middle of someone else's emotional conversation? "I said you're making breakfast. But first I'm replacing that bandage."

"Right, whatever," Ward said, with overplayed exasperation, and sat back and didn't look at Colleen, at least not at her face, though he watched her out of the corner of her eye while Danny disinfected the stinging gouge in his palm and wrapped it up again. Meanwhile Colleen was getting out some of their things, the cookware and the pancake mix and the powdered eggs. "Oh, I'm making a whole entire breakfast with _courses,_ am I?"

"I don't know about the rest of you, but I climbed a mountain yesterday and I could eat an entire herd of bison right now. So yes," Colleen said.

Danny tucked in the bandage and patted Ward's arm. "Get to it, husband. Feed us."

"I hate you," Ward said, meaning the opposite, and got to it.


End file.
